从电池厂工人到纽约高薪程序员，29岁农村姑娘厉害了！

从湖南娄底的农村出来，她用了十年，成为了纽约的高薪程序员。她说：“只要付出，就会有回报，或多或少……”

Whoever thought it would be possible for a young woman from a small village in China who failed to get in a university would one day be working at the Google office in New York? But this is exactly what Sun Ling, a 29-year-old programmer from Loudi, Central China's Hunan Province, managed to achieve.

谁能想到一位未能如愿考上大学的中国农村姑娘，如今会在纽约的谷歌办公室工作？

但来自湖南省娄底市29岁的程序员孙玲做到了。

（图 via 孙玲)

Setbacks

愈挫愈勇

Sun came from a poor farming family. Her father used to be a carpenter but manufacturing put him out of a job and her mom was unable to find a job. This situation made it very difficult for her parents to put both her and her older brother through school. 

孙玲来自一个贫穷的农民家庭。她的父亲曾是一名木匠，但是在机器化进程中被淘汰。她母亲也一直找不到合适的工作。这个家庭很难支撑她和哥哥一起上学。

After Sun's elder brother dropped out of school, her father pressured her to stop studying because he felt it was inappropriate for a girl to study at school when a boy could not. 

孙玲的哥哥辍学之后，受旧观念影响的父亲也让孙玲停了学。

"I persuaded my parents to let me continue going to school by promising them that I would get into the county's No.1 high school," Sun told the Global Times. 

“我向父母保证自己会考上县城排名第一的高中，以此来说服他们让我继续上学，” 孙玲告诉《环球时报》英文版。

While she didn't get into the county's top school, she managed to get into a private high school. Years later, in 2009, although she managed to achieve the highest score, a 399, on that years' national college entrance examinations, or gaokao, her score did not reach the second-tier admission requirements for university.

虽然孙玲没有如愿地进入该县的顶尖学校，但她设法进入了一所私立高中。 2009年，孙玲参加了高考，尽管她取得了（本校应届生里的）最高分，399分，但她的分数还是没有达到大学的二本分数线。

The summer after the examinations, she traveled 14 hours by train to take a job at a battery factory in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province. 

高考后的那个夏天，孙玲坐了14个小时的（绿皮）火车到深圳市的一家电池厂工作。

（图 via 网络)

Working on the night shift, she was responsible for inspecting the positive and negative connections in the batteries. 

她被安排到夜班，负责电池正负极的检测。

However, the repetitive 12-hour work days soon took their toll on her and she quickly realized that this was not the life she wanted. 

然而，一天12个小时重复做着不喜欢的事情，她很快意识到这不是她想要的生活。

"The idea at the time was very simple. Since I didn't like the factory's streamlined life, I knew that I needed to learn skills that could earn me the money to get out of there," Sun said.

“当时的想法很简单。我不喜欢工厂流水线式的生活，认为需要去学点可以赚钱的技能才能脱离这样的环境，”孙玲说。

Looking for a way out, Sun got a chance to know that a software training institution in Shenzhen holding a course in computer in 2010. Driven by curiosity, she resigned from the factory and signed up.

为了寻找出路，2010年，孙玲打听到了深圳一家开设计算机课程的软件培训机构。在好奇心的驱使下，她（攒够钱）辞去了工厂的工作并报了名。

After the training course, she applied for more software courses at two training institutions, paying for her tuition by taking on three part-time jobs and with the help of a credit card. 

在培训课程结束后，她在两个培训机构申请了更多的软件课程，通过三份兼职和信用卡来支付学费。

That year, her entire life pretty much consisted of working and studying. 

那一年，工作和学习差不多占用了她的全部生活。

While it was tough, Sun felt it was more than worth the effort. 

虽然过程很艰苦，但孙玲觉得这些付出都是值得的。

"It felt very fulfilling since I was learning something every day. I felt that learning could change my life and give me more options," she said. 

“因为我每天都在学东西，所以感觉非常充实。当时觉得学习能改变现状，能让我多一点选择，”她说。

Sun is not the only hard working person in Shenzhen. Every year, thousands of people, especially young people like Sun, head there to seek out a better life for themselves.

其实孙玲不是唯一在深圳的打拼者。 每年都有成千上万的年轻人，特别是像孙玲一样的年轻人，纷纷到深圳谋求更好的生活。

"I liked Shenzhen because it was a very young and energetic city, but it was too difficult to find a boyfriend in such a fast-paced city," Sun joked. 

“我喜欢深圳，因为这是一个非常年轻和充满活力的城市，但在这样一个快节奏的城市找男朋友太难了，”孙玲开玩笑说。

（图 via 网络)

Heading overseas

走向海外

Completing her training in 2011, she found an IT job at a technology company in Shenzhen that was working with the government. Responsible for tracking the salaries of civil servants, she was pulling in 4,000 yuan ($580) a month.

2011年，孙玲完成了培训，并在深圳一家与政府合作的技术公司找到了一份IT工作，负责管理公务员的工资，月薪4000元。

The year 2015 was special for Sun since that was when she earned her bachelor degree by passing China's Self-Taught Higher Education Examinations. 

2015年对孙玲是特殊的一年，她通过自考获得了本科学历。

However, the young woman was not willing to stop there. Looking to move her career forward, she found a programming school located in the US and decided to give it a shot. She started to learn English and began saving money for the application fee. In 2017, she was accepted into the school. 

然而，这位年轻的姑娘不愿止步于此。为了继续发展自己的事业，她（在网上）发现了一所美国（招赴美带薪程序员）的学校，并决定试一试。 她开始学习英语，攒申请费。 2017年，她被录取了。

Walking out of the door of the US embassy with her newly obtained visa, she was reminded of a scene in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. 

拿到签证走出大使馆的那一刻，孙玲想到了电影《当幸福来敲门》中的一幕。

（图 via 网络)

"My mood at the moment was similar to that of [the main character] Chris. Words could not describe my feeling, but I was really excited," Sun said. 

“我那一刻的心情和（主角）克里斯很像，无法用语言来描述我的心情，实在是太激动了，”孙玲说。

（图 via 孙玲)

During the nine-month study period, Sun completed one course a month, which mainly consisted studying programming theory in the mornings and putting these theories into practice in the afternoons. 

在为期九个月的学习期间，孙玲每月需要完成一门课程，上午学理论，下午练实操。

After finishing the program, Sun began to hunt for jobs. She set a three-month deadline for herself, since she knew that's as far as her finances would let her stay in the US. With no retreat in mind, Sun boldly walked forward. 

完成该计划后，孙玲开始找工作。她给自己定了三个月的期限，因为她知道只有找到工作有了收入才能继续留在美国。在没有退路的情况下，孙玲为此一搏。

After two months and nearly 60 interviews, she was hired by EPAM Systems, a software engineering and IT consulting company, to move to New York City and work with Google to develop IP protection software. 

经过两个月，近60次的面试，她被EPAM Systems（一家软件工程和IT咨询公司）聘用，并搬到纽约市，与谷歌合作开发防护等级系统软件。

Dream come true

梦想成真

The evening of her first day working at Google's offices in New York, Sun looked out at the light up Manhattan skyline and could barely believe where she was. After more than a decade of exhausting days and nights, she had finally achieved a dream that was beyond anything she had previously imagined. 

在纽约谷歌办公室工作的第一天晚上，孙玲望着远处灯光渐次亮起的曼哈顿，几乎不敢相信自己会在这里工作。 经过十多年的昼夜努力，她终于实现了一个超乎她想象的梦想。

（图 via 网络)

"Perhaps if you were in my situation, it would not have been that difficult to do these things a step at a time," Sun joked.

“或许当你处在我的环境时，再一步一步去做这些事情就没那么难了，”孙玲说。

She noted that her ability to seek out and find information helped get her where she is today. 

她说自己获取信息的能力帮助她取得了今天的成就。

"It is easy for people to give up when they cannot find enough information. They need to think what they can do and what want to achieve, and then make a move without needing to think too much. Try to do something that makes you feel a little uncomfortable, because it can make you better," Sun said.

“人很容易在信息不多的时候就放弃。他们需要想想自己能做什么，想要实现什么，然后就要付诸行动，想太多也无用。尽量去做点让自己稍微不舒服的事情吧，因为它可以让你变得更好，”孙玲说。

She said her experience was not a successful transformation because she was still an ordinary worker. She hoped one day she could be an official employee in Google and learn more things in big data analysis in the future.

孙玲说她的经历并不算一次成功的蜕变，因为她仍然是一名普通的打工者。 她希望有一天能成为谷歌的正式员工，将来想从大数据分析方面学到更多。

"Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get," Sun said.

“生活是一盒巧克力，你永远不知道你会得到什么，”孙玲说。

（图 via 网络)

有人说孙玲是灰姑娘，有人说孙玲变成了白天鹅，也有人说孙玲依靠自己坚强的毅力和好学的态度，一步一步地蜕变，大家觉得还会有孙玲这样的人出现吗？

（图 via 网络)

原文／翻译：Chen Xi

图／题图：孙玲，网络

其他精彩，请戳图片阅读：